AMMA-just missed..

Taking a cursory look at the TN results can lead one to conclude that DMK alliance has swept to power, but in reality it was just a touch and go. With most parties retaining their vote share it all boils to the strength of the alliance. Also its just easy to conclude that Vijayakanth played a spoilsport for Amma. yeah! an alliance with him would have turned the scales in quiet number of seats, but its not all.. My personal feeling is if Vijayakanth would have gone with Amma then i'm not sure whether he would have commanded this big chunk of votes. Vijayakanth did spilt the votes from all parties(esp. PMK who had a pretty bad outing this time..) and a major chunk of his votes are from the neutral voters who want to see off these two dravidian parties.. So my personal opinion is despite starting from a favorable position AMMA grossly mismanaged the campaign. With respect to governance, people want to see something extraordinary to retain a govt. They are always prepared to take a risk of new government.
Just look at the way Chennai and the Tsunami belt reacted, the reaction of the govt. at the need of the hour has made the people forget other issues which were of importance before the disaster. The failure of Amma is, to make the rest of the state get the same feel-good factor. The southern districts and cauvery delta region have gone against her. The southern districts have not forgotten the anti-conversion act and the act to ban animal slaughter in temples. Particularly churches have made sure that this remains fresh in the minds of people. The DMK carried the delta region with its manifesto of cancelling the loans from the co-operative banks and special sops to the weavers. The way Amma panicked on seeing the reaction to the DMK manifesto and started giving freebies left and right, further reduced her credibility. In short if Amma has extened some sops little earlier focussed on these two segments it could have gone better. All she needed was a valuable advisor outside the purview of sasi, somebody who can feel the pulse of the people. So in short a little over confidence and lack of planning has spoiled what could have become a memorable victory and could have altered the politcal map of TamilNadu for good.

p.s. Its refreshing to see the number of votes polled by the LokParitran's candidates. Its definitely a good sign for the future.